I had the amazing chance to attend The Giving Back Tour stop in Cleveland, Ohio and it was one of the best weekends and experiences I have ever had in my whole life. Friday, the 1st day of the con, my mom, my dad, and I all woke up at like 1:00am in the morning and drove about 5-6 hours to convention from Canada, but it was completely worth it. I was so excited that I could barely sleep driving up to Cleveland.
When we got to the Cleveland an drove up to the convention center I could have been bouncing off the walls with excitement, if that were physically possible. The first thing that my mom and I did was get our PDF versions of our silver weekend passes turned in for our badge. My dad just drove around and explored Cleveland and I am very thankful that he was willing to drive us to the con and stay there for the whole weekend while we were at the con. After we got our badges, then we went to the ticket table, (I’m guessing that’s what it’s called, not really sure), and I bought a Kim solo op an da Briana solo op, as well as both there autograph tickets, and my mom and I split a Matt solo op. After we got all our tickets, we then headed to the Starbucks because…..caffeine.
The vendors room opened up before the auditorium did so we headed down there and I was thrilled because there was a lot of vendors there that I wanted to meet. First we went to Shelley’s booth who runs Con*Quest Journals. Shelley was incredibly sweet and it was so amazing to meet her, I got a picture with her and she signed my journal (which is slightly funny because she made them). Shelley also recognized me from online because I like a lot of her posts and comment a lot on them, (at least that’s where/why I think she recognized me from). Next, we went over to Jodi’s booth who runs Eldwenne’s Fantasy. She makes beautiful hand crafted jewelry and was very nice to my mom and I. I got a picture with Jodi and she signed my hunters journal. We also talked about how we were going to her jewelry making workshop on Saturday. Then, we went to see Zerbe and Scout who had a joint booth. Zerbe makes custom engravings, bullet jewelry, and grace necklaces and Scout is a comic illustrator and writer who has a bunch of art pieces on Etsy, Redbubble, and Society6. They were both awesome and I got a picture with each of them and they both signed my journal. After meeting Zerbe and Scout, I went back to Shelley’s booth because I saw Alana King’s mom, Patricia, and her friend/roommate, Samantha or SamSam as Alana calls her. One of the main reasons why I wanted to go to this con and why my parents agreed to take me was because I really wanted to meet Alana, who is a very popular youtuber in the SPN fandom. Now, I have only ever cried from meeting someone once, and that was after my first photo op with Jared and Jensen. But for some reason I couldn’t control my emotions and started to cry, tears of joy and happiness of course. Alana is one of my biggest inspirations and is such a role model in my life, it was so incredibly amazing to be able meet her. I got a picture with Alana, smiling through the tears, and then she signed my hunters journal. Alana also talked about how she liked the blog post that I wrote about her, which made me cry even more. If you want to read the post click here.
After I met Alana her mom came and over and also talked about how much she liked the blog post that I wrote. I got a picture with Patricia, Alana’s mom, and then one with the two of them. It was really nice to meet them and made me really happy as well. We then went to go to some other things that I’ll talk about later, but when we came back I went and said hi to Samantha/SamSam and got a picture with her as well and she signed my hunters journal. I was asking Samantha about which name she preferred and she said she didn’t mind either one. But then out of nowhere, Alana pops up and says that she[Samantha] likes SamSam because that’s what Alana calls her which was kind of funny. Although, when I getting my J2 photo op at the Toronto convention in 2017, Jared scared the crap out of me when he tugged my sleeve a bit saying that he liked my shirt and I was wearing my AKF shirt on; and Alana did pretty much the same thing regarding scaring the crap out of me. That wasn’t the only time I saw Alana during the con when she popped out of nowhere. But it was cool to see her throughout the weekend and saying hi when I got the chance to her and everyone else as well. Although I will say that she and Jared are very similar with scaring me at cons (even though it’s only happened once, but who knows what the future has instore). Afterwards we went over to Liz’s booth, who is the owner of Little Pop Workshop she makes custom pops, stickers, key chains, buttons, art pieces, etc.; Liz was an absolute sweetheart and like everybody else, I got a picture with her and she signed my hunters journal.
After going to all the vendors and meeting everybody, my mom and I then headed into the auditorium to watch the Welcome With Rob, because Rich had to work he couldn’t attend the convention so it was just Rob hosting. We get to our seats and I was really happy with them. They were on the side so my mom could have the aisle, and the screen was right in front of us but we could still see the people on stage. This convention center was a little odd…because it had these giant pillars in the main room where the auditorium was. Not to put blame or fault on Creation, but they placed the chairs really awkwardly around the pillars and for some people it was hard to see the stage. Luckily, we were on the side without pillars, so we were okay regarding seeing the stage, Rob and the band, Louden Swain, came out and did a song or two; and it was really cute/funny because usually there’s two of them, but because Rich wasn’t there he had to do the jobs of two people. One of those being to make sure they were on schedule for things on stage. So he would try to sneak away to look backstage to check and “distract” us while he did it. Rob did a great job hosting the con throughout the weekend though. Rob also had a little moment where he forgot who was coming up next, so he had to look back at Stephen, who is part of Louden Swain, to confirm it was Rachel who was coming up.
The first panel of the con was Rachel Miner (obviously I just said it), she came up the ramp in her wheelchair with Clarence the Unicorn on the front of it. Creation recently added a ramp for her and anyone else who needed it; and I love seeing them giving her the accommodations and making cons for accessible for not only her but others as well. I didn’t really plan on asking any questions during the panels, but then I saw people just walk up to the line and it was pretty short….so I thought why not, let’s try this. So I lined up and was trying to come up with a question to ask (because I wasn’t planning on doing this so I was unprepared in the beginning). After people asked there question, Rachel would ask them for a plural noun or a verb, something like that, for the mad lib because that was her game. I was nervous already about asking Rachel a question, but then I realized that I don’t remember anything about verbs or adjectives or anything like that. So that just made me even more nervous than I was before. When it was my turn to ask Rachel a question, my hands were shaking so much and my heart was racing. I asked her “What is your favourite thing about Meg?”, and she said her loyalty, whether it was to Azazel or Lucifer, she [Meg] was always extremely loyal. She didn’t make a big deal of it but she [Meg] was there; and her perspective, because she had been around for so long her perspective gave her stability. Then Rachel asked me what my favourite thing about Meg was, and I said her ferocity, she didn’t let anyone step on her or beat her down. Even when Crowley kidnapped her and tortured her, she still stayed strong and didn’t let that break her. After Rachel answered my question she asked me to give her a noun for the mad libs, I was so relieved I got that because that was the only one I remembered. The first thing that came to my head for a noun was impala…..that didn’t work out so well in the finished product of the mad libs. Rachel said that it should be in there at least once, which made me really happy. Then I went back to my seat with my mom and listened to the rest of Rachel’s panel. When it was the end of the panel, she read the complete mad lib out, and no one else gave impala as a word so I kept my ears peeled for it. What came it came out as was “two dead impalas”. I was like oh no, I killed the impala. But it was a little funny as well.
Next after Rachel’s panel it was Supernatural Trivia with David Haydn-Jones and Adam Fergus, along with Jason Manns hosting. It was a really funny game, David and Adam would go into the audience and pick people to be on their team. They were both really competitive about their team winning and Jason made sure to hit the reset button for the buzzers and we reminded him if needed. In Indianapolis he kept forgetting to hit the reset button and it messed them up. But he got it this time. Most of the question were pretty easy, but there was the odd question that was pretty hard. After trivia, there was an intermission and sign-ups for karaoke. While this was happening people were standing next to the banner of the impala and one of the Creation workers made a contest to take the funniest picture with Baby and the best one would win some stuff from creation. So you would post the picture on social media using the hashtag #BabyOp and they would choose a winner. My mom and I were just
gonna do a regular picture not worrying about making it funny, and women named Sarah with a little baby girl named Esther offered to take the picture for us so we could both be in it which was very nice of her to do. As Sarah was trying to take the picture Esther kept walking up to us, so my mom being the person she is who loves babies, just picked up Esther and we had her in the picture and took one without her. It was cute though and then we tried to get Esther to stand still so Sarah could take a picture of her in front of Baby. I asked Sarah if I could post it on social media because it was her kid and I tagged her in it as well.
Although it actually worked out well because we had signed up to Escape From Perdition which is a game organized by Random Acts where you do a bunch of random acts of kindness and other things to earn your angel wings and if you completed special tasks you earned a Random Acts coin. One of the things to do was to take a picture with someone in cosplay, and coincidentally enough Esther was dressed up as Sam/Dean in flannel, jeans, boots. So we used that as our picture with a cosplayer, and if you follow me on twitter you probably saw a bunch of the other tasks we did. My mom signed us up for karaoke but we didn’t get picked which is ok. There are still other chances to do karaoke at other cons.
Afterwards, I had my solo photo ops with Kim and Briana. First it was Kim and her line was pretty short and so was Briana’s line, so the ops were back to back. When they let us into the photo op room, Chris Schmelke the photographer put on a playlist because there is always music playing in the op room. And the first song to come one was SOS by ABBA…..at least that’s what I think was playing. But nonetheless, I was singing along in my head and tapping my foot to it. When Kim came in she was dancing and smiling walking up to us. She made sure to hug each person who came up to her and then did the pose they wanted. I wanted to do a hug pose, so I hugged her and then Kim started to turn to the camera to do a hug pose but I asked for a hug anyway because I wanted to ask instead of assuming. It came out really cute and usually I don’t smile with my teeth because I don’t like how I look. But I tried and it turned out really good. Chris took the picture and then Kim squeezed me while we were still hugging and she said thank you and then I said thank you back. It was really nice meeting Kim and I didn’t cry afterwards which was a success for me.
Right after I had Kim’s solo op, I had to head right back in to the line for my Briana solo op; and just like Kim, Briana came in dancing to the music and smiling at all of us. When it was my turn, I walked up to Briana and asked if I could have a big hug; and she just brought me into this big hug and squished me. I loved it, it felt like a hug you would give to your best friend when you haven’t seen them in a while. Chris took the picture and I said thank you to Briana, and as I was leaving the photo op room, my mom was in this little area for people who are waiting for somebody to get there photo op done. So she saw the whole thing, and she was smiling at me and I didn’t cry after this picture either, yay! That was all the photo ops I had for the day, so my mom and I found somewhere to sit and we ate some food and charged our phones. Although, I could hear something going on in the theatre. I checked the schedule and completely misread when Jason Mann’s panel was. So we packed up our stuff and basically ran downstairs to the auditorium for Jason’s panel. We went down and watched the panel and some people made some song requests because he had his guitar on stage so we got to watch him answer questions and a mini concert type thing. After Jason’s panel there was yes/no trivia that was being run by Creation Entertainment. They did 3 rounds of trivia and I got picked for the 2nd round. Some of the questions were hard but some were pretty obvious. The question that I got wrong was is Rufus’ cabin in white fish, something. It was the right city but the wrong state and I said both were right. But if I got that question right, I could have answered the other questions so that made me a bit upset.
Next was David Haydn-Jones and Adam Fergus’ panel, it was good and I was asking a question at most of the panels that happened that day, so I did the same for them. I asked them what kind of accents they can do. Adam talked about how they both did accents on supernatural and that now he is working on a show where he is doing a Texan accent which Jensen helped him with . David said that he can do a standard North American accent and if you get a few drinks in him, then he will do a western Canadian accent. David also talked about how he stayed in the Ketch accent the entire time he was on set and he thinks that’s the longest practical joke on SPN because the whole cast thought he was British until they heard him talk without it at a SPN convention. The rest of David and Adam’s panel was really good and funny. One of the questions asked was if they could impersonate each other and the impersonations they did of each other was hilarious.
Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster’s panel came next and it was so good (I’m saying that for every panel because they were all amazing). This was the last panel of the day and I felt like asking Kim and Bri a question so it worked out. Although, there game was monster mash up with unplanned acting it out. And I can say the acting out part was one of the best, most funny things I have ever seen. I asked Kim and Bri the same question I asked Rachel during her panel, which was what is your favourite thing about Jody and Donna. Kim said that she liked Jody’s resilience, she loves that in spite of the pain Jody kept moving forward. Kim said that she felt like Jody learned that from Sam after he had to kill her son. Briana said that she liked Donna’s optimism, she doesn’t wear her pain or use it. There answers were actually very similar to my favourite things about Jody and Donna. The rest of Kim and Bri’s panel was amazing and very inspiring.
After all the panels were done for the day we had autographs and then karaoke. We had Adam’s autograph as part of our silver weekend pass and then I bought a Kim and Bri autograph ticket. First we went to Kim because her line was shorter, and there was a mother and her baby a few spots ahead of us and Kim was playing with the baby and it was really cute. As we were waiting in line to get Kim’s autograph, I look over at Briana’s line and I see Alana and Liz in her line to get autographs. Then I hear Briana do a little squeal/scream and I look over and I see that Liz gave Briana her rock star pop that she made, which was really cute. I go up for my autograph with Kim, and I wanted her to sign her chapter in Family Don’t End With Blood. She started to sign it around the edge and I wasn’t really questioning why she did that but then Kim said it was so it wouldn’t bleed through the page which I thought was very considerate of her and I appreciated it. Then we, my mom and I, went over to Briana’s line to get her autograph and as we did Alana and Liz went over to Kim’s line which was kind of funny. We went up to get Briana’s autograph and I tell her how my mom and I are both Canadian and my mom says that we drove from Toronto and Briana is also from Toronto and Briana gave me a high five as well. Then we headed across the auditorium over to get Adam’s autograph. When it was our turn to get his autograph, I didn’t really say much; he said hi, then I said hi back. Adam signed my hunter’s journal from Con*Quest Journals then he said thanks and I said thank you and then we left. I’m really shy and awkward so I don’t say much.
After autographs, my dad came to the convention center to pick my mom and I up for dinner. We drove around and found a Jimmy John’s to eat at, I had never been to one before because I don’t think they have them in Canada, but it kind of reminded me of subway. As we were eating dinner at the Jimmy John’s, no joke, Carry On My Wayward Son began to play. I had a mini tiny freak out and I looked at my dad and just thought, the con did it. The con gods or con magic did it. As we were heading back to the convention center I felt bad about my dad constantly driving us around this weekend, and I realized that karaoke is a free event so you probably don’t need a day pass and we brought my dad to karaoke with us. They weren’t checking passes to closely anyway so it worked out for this con, not sure about other ones though. When we got back to the convention center it was still a bit early for karaoke…so my parents ditched me in the line and went to the bar in the hotel. But it was fine, I chatted with the people next to me in the karaoke line and we had fun. Then they came back and said that they saw Rachel in the bar which was cool. Also, there were a few people in Scooby-doo cosplays next to us and my mom thought the person dressed up as Fred was dressed up as Dean. I was dead-certain that it was Fred so we asked……I was right.
We headed into the auditorium and everyone started to rush up the middle towards the stage. I just went up the sides towards the edge of the stage so I could see the screen. What didn’t know was that only one screen had the lyrics on it, the other one had a camera that was pointed towards the stage. Luckily enough, I went in front of the screen that had the lyrics. First one of the Creation staff members came out, and she could sing like no tomorrow, rocking out to the song,(that I can’t remember), it was awesome. Then everyone else came out, Matt Cohen who was hosting karaoke, Kim, Bri, Adam and David. There was a lot of old songs and I knew a bunch of them because my parents play the radio station that’s full of them. And any songs I didn’t know, I just read the words from the screen because it was fun. My mom and I were singing and dancing the whole time, it was a very upbeat, fun, and energetic event. I even recognized some of the people who got picked to go up and sing, friends from twitter, Nerds and Beyond writers, Sarah and Ester. We had so much fun and my dad enjoyed it as well. Karaoke was the last thing of the day so we went back to our hotel and just crashed into our beds and went to sleep. And that was my Day 1 of Supernatural Cleveland 2018. Also to anyone going to #SPNMINN I hope you have the best time!